


The Word That You Heard

by glitterandrocketfuel



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grease (1978) Fusion, F/M, Genderswap, Going to Hell, Grease AU, M/M, Peterick, Weird Plot Shit, bandom weirdness, everybody gets stuck in roles, joetrick - Freeform, story as a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:11:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterandrocketfuel/pseuds/glitterandrocketfuel
Summary: Strange things sometimes happen to you when you're famous. This is one of them.Sometimes you walk through the door to a dressing room and come out in a different story. And sometimes, living someone else's story is the only way to see through to your own happily ever after. When the Fall Out Boys land in 1959 Rydell High, they find themselves thrust into roles in the original high school musical. No matter how unsuited they may be to playing Greasers and Pink Ladies, or how badly Gerard doesn't want to be seen in a poodle skirt, they've all got parts to play. And if they don't play their parts, the parts will play them.For @secretstudentdragonblog and @scarredsodeep because this thing started out as a joke about a random shot in the "Dance, Dance" video and BALLOONED.Starring Joe Trohvolta (hey, you tell me his outfit in "Dance, Dance" wasn't 110% Grease and I'll call you a liar), Sandra Dee Stump, Andy Kenickie, Petey Rizzo, Frenchie Way, Cha-Cha Way, and assorted Agents of Story that will do whatever it takes to get the boys from FOB and MCR (and poor Lyn-Z who knew what she was getting into and volunteered anyway) into the roles they were very much NOT born to play, but will anyway.





	1. Lead Role

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecretStudentDragonBlog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretStudentDragonBlog/gifts).



> Happy birthday to SecretStudentDragonBlog! This one's for you!
> 
> I have no excuses. I have no shame. But I have bad ideas and dark alleys that say "wriiiiite thiiiiss fiiiiiic" so I do.

###  **Chapter 1**

Nobody underrated Joe Trohman like Joe Trohman.

Fall Out Boy's hiatus had been a good thing for all of them. The four of them got their chances to grow up, to spread their individual wings as musicians and as people, and to come back together with a little less drama and a lot less ego between them. But sometimes, Joe still felt left behind. He didn't let it bother him--he was happy with the role he played in the band and the creative working relationship he was developing with Patrick and the creative input he was freely given on the new songs. And Pete was doing his best to rein in his tendency to create dumpster fires of his entire life just to make a smoke screen for the rest of them.

Joe wasn't exactly comfortable with a lot of media scrutiny, but he was doing fine in interviews and liked to see the faces of interviewers when he responded to something instead of Pete or Patrick. But sometimes the media couldn't resist hooking right back into the same old, "PeteAndPatrick Show" and the last thing Joe wanted was a return to the old "put Fall Out Boy's name in the news from drama instead of music." Because these days, it just _reeked_ of desperation and one of the things he loved about his band was their tendency to blaze trails, not walk down the same well-worn ones other people had made.

Joe also liked things to be orderly and neat. It was why he shared a tour bus with Andy and not Pete or Patrick. The "neat bus" had things like folded clothes (clean separated from dirty, thankyouverymuch), organized DVDs and video games, a list of snacks approved for Andy's ethical dietary choices and his own medical ones. All his costume changes, guitars, spare picks and strings, and lists of tunings for each set came via neatly-labeled printouts inside the guitar cases, on top of the stack of "Joe's Equipment" backstage, and in the dressing rooms before and after the shows.

Pete got him a label-maker once as a joke, but the joke was on Pete when Joe went full-Pete with it, labeling everything including the inside of Patrick's hat and all of Pete's underwear. On the inside. In detail. "Penis goes here," on the inside front. "Ass-crack goes here," and a special one right down in the bottom. "Ball-sweat receptacle," which he was pretty proud of. Especially since Pete hadn't noticed the labels until after he'd put on the undies and the sticky edges had time to catch on his short'n'curlies. The howls and the "Trohman, you fucker, I'm gonna get you back for this!" were music to Joe's ears after many years of instances and mishaps involving his own mane and various substances originating with Pete Wentz in one form or another.

But aside from the prankly goodness, Joe liked things to be clearly labeled. So when he walked through the door that was clearly labeled "Dressing Room - FOB" he expected to walk into a _goddamn dressing room for Fall Out Boy_. Instead, he walked into something that was very much NOT for Fall Out Boy, and not a fucking dressing room.

He stumbled out into the light into one of his recurring nightmares. High School.

**

* * *

 

###  **Chapter 2**

Joe felt the familiar weight of a leather jacket over his shoulders and a very unfamiliar helmet-like sensation. Almost like when Pete made them all wear those balaclavas like a bunch of bank robbers. He reached up and felt not hat, but his own hair, only...crunchier. _How--_

His thought was interrupted by Andy Hurley's voice from somewhere behind him. "Joe?"

Joe turned. "Andy, thank fuck--wait, no, I mean _what the_ fuck?" He stared at Andy. Like him, Andy wore a leather biker jacket, but his hair had been similarly slicked up with the same industrial-strength hair product that Andy probably would raise holy hell about because of animal testing. And his beard--Andy's glorious, hipster beard--was gone. "Your beard," Joe said faintly.

"Our reality," Andy parried. Andy was always better at tucking and rolling when the Fall Out Boy train derailed. Andy pointed at his feet and Joe looked down to see his jeans had been rolled up to show socks.

Joe grimaced. "Who pegs their pants these days?"

"Everyone, apparently." Andy pointed at his own shoes. "Also, 'these days' may need a little redefinition in your headspace. I think we time-traveled."

Joe looked around. They were in a shady corner of a concrete patio with tables and chairs, next to a blocky, institutional building with a bright sign that declared the building to be Rydell High School. Scattered over the molded plastic furniture in small groups were young men wearing khakis and sweater vests, and young women wearing tight capris or wide, fluffy skirts with appliques of dogs and vinyl records and stars. Almost everyone wore saddle shoes, which Joe only knew of from his mother.

But the cars. The fucking cars in the parking lot beyond the low wall surrounding the patio. No wonder Andy’s expression underneath the over-gelled swoop of his hair looked like gathering storm clouds. The fins on the huge land-yachts practically advertised lead poisoning and planet murdering in Andy’s eyes. And a rant already forming on his tongue, which Joe forestalled with a distraction. “Do we know any of these people? Or, like, where we are on a map?” Because sometimes when you were in Fall Out Boy, you sort of found yourself in places you couldn’t find on a map.

He glanced at Andy, who turned and looked out over the tableau. The back of Andy's jacket said "T-Birds" and featured a very bad line drawing of what was supposed to be a hawk or an eagle outlined in white paint.

One of the girls--who was one of the few not wearing a wide skirt--straightened up from a nearby table. Her hair was short and wavy, which made her stand out from the longer, bouffant--another word Joe could thank from his mom--hairstyles of her friends. From behind, Joe could see her pink satin jacket said "Pink Ladies" in neat stitching. The edge of the jacket rested over a nice-looking pair of hips encased in a pencil skirt.

"Oh my," muttered Andy, in one of those "I'm going to never fail to bring this up every chance I get" or "I'm going to never be able to bleach this out of my brain" tones of voice.

The girl turned and Joe could see why, as his stomach dropped out of the bottom of his taint and landed somewhere between his knees. "That's no Pink Lady--"

"Andy? Joe?" Underneath those curls, the sun came out, prompted by the huge, shit-eating grin that was unmistakably Pete Fucking Wentz. "Thank Christ you guys are here!"

Pete was no stranger to oddball fashion choices or women's clothing, so it really shouldn't have surprised Joe to see him rocking a pencil skirt and heels like he owned them. But--"Dude, that porn-scarf is too fucking much."

Pete trotted over to them and patted the fluttery peach scarf knotted at his throat. "Shh. It hides my adam's apple. They...get a little antsy when they remember I'm a dude."

Joe wouldn't say it, but he remembered times where they'd ALL gotten a little antsy when they remembered Pete was a dude. Pete included. " _Who_ the fuck are _they_ , _where_ the fuck are _we_ , and _what_ the fuck did _you do_ , Pete Wentz?"

"Me?" Pete's eyes went wide and Joe had to admit that he made a very pretty girl. "I walked through a fuckin' dressing room door, same as you."

"It's a rip in the space-time continuum," muttered a voice from somewhere off to Joe's left.

"What?" Joe turned, along with Andy and Pete. Two people huddled in the shadows, skulking against the wall like a pair of criminals. Beside him, Pete gasped.

"Mikeyway? Mikey fucking Way?"

"Shh!" The tall, skinny Way hissed. "You'll attract its attention!"

"What's attention?" Andy asked, sidling over to the two of them.

His brother Gerard answered. "The Narrative!"

"I am fully confused right now," Joe muttered.

Gerard pulled him into the corner until they were all the way out of the sunlight. Muttering to himself. "I was fucking happy. I have a fucking deadline. I just went into the closet to find a back issue!" To Joe, he said. "You walked into a closet, right?" At Joe's nod, he continued. "Fucking portals and thresholds. Look. This is how it works. One minute, you're minding your own business, and the next, you walk through a door, into a closet, or from light into darkness and you come out somewhere else because of the fucking Narrative."

"Still not making much sense, dude. Sorry."

Mikey interjected. "This happens to him a lot more than it does to me. You guys ever read Terry Pratchett?" At the round of shaken heads--except for Andy's--Mikey waved a hand. "I'm sort-of cribbing this from him. There's something called Narrative physics, okay? It's like physics--gravity, speed of light, Newton's laws, shit like that--only the way it works isn't physics, it's story. So what my brother is trying to say is that we've stepped into a rip in the great continuum of--" here, Mikey waved his hands with a "fucked if I know" expression-- "whatever, and ended up in a space where Narrative Physics works."

"Gravity does, too," Pete said helpfully, jumping up and looking disappointed when he landed instead of floating.

"That's because the Narrative wants it to," Gerard said from the ground, where he'd slid. "The Narrative has given us all roles in this story, and we have to play the parts."

Pete glanced down at his tight black skirt and pink jacket and heels. "I don't guess it cares whether or not you're...er--"

Mikey grimaced. "The Narrative sticks you where you fit best. Even when your parts might not...fit."

Gerard sighed. "Whatever story we're in--"

"You know what story we're in, motherfucker." Mikey kicked half-heartedly with his boot.

"Whatever story we're in, we've got to roll with it until it plays out."

"What if we don't know the story?" Joe asked. He was beginning to suspect he did know the story, but not his role.

"You have to figure it out."

Pete glanced down at his jacket. "My jacket says I'm Rizzo. Rizzo?”

"And what happens if we don't?" Andy asked carefully. “I’m not sure I want to be this Kenickie guy. Or anybody in a story that’s all about changing yourself to fit other people’s expectations.”

"Sooner or later, you do." Gerard buried his face in his hands. "You either play the role, or you become part of the story. Forever."

**

* * *

 

###  **Chapter 3**

Mikey calmed Gerard with a few determined pats and one last kick. "Get up, Gee. It's not so bad."

Gerard glared up at his little brother. "Fucking Frenchie, though?" He scowled.

"Shut up. At least Lynz is here to play Marty to your Frenchie. I have to play Cha-Cha."

"You've got, like, one line." Gerard ran his fingers through his hair. "I have to make eyes at Frankie--"

"How’s that different from Warped Tour?" Pete snickered.

" _Avalon_ , fucker. Iero's around here somewhere strutting in a leather jacket like Joe's and Andy's. I get easter-egg pink hair, a bubble 'do, and a goddamn _poodle skirt!_ " Gerard pushed to his feet. "Do you know how unflattering a poodle skirt is with my build?"

Gerard fished for a cigarette in his pants pocket and came up with one. Joe found a lighter--a nice Zippo with an engraved side that rested against his thumb--in his own pocket and lit it for him, almost wishing for his own, but he'd made a promise to Marie and not even a weird alternate universe would make him go back on it.

"The minute I step out into that light, I go full Pink Lady. This fucker has one line and a cameo appearance."

Mikey rolled his eyes. "I have to dance. Backwards and in heels, asshole. And we already know Ray's not my dance partner, so it's gonna be rough."

"Don't you dance with the lead?" Pete asked. "Who's lead? And where's Patrick?"

They were all shrugging and staring at each other. Joe could tell they were all doing mental tallies in their heads. Joe glanced down at the lighter, still in his hand, and tried to make sense of the force that was pushing down on his brain. Andy's fingers were gentle as he flipped the lighter in Joe's hand over and they gathered around to read the initials.

_DZ_

"Well, fuck me."

Danny Zuco.

"Joe," Pete said, uncharacteristically quiet. "Look at that, man. You're the lead."


	2. Pin-up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick Stump has never been truly comfortable in his skin. Then again, is anyone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand the last Fall Out Boy makes a grand entrance.

###  **Chapter 1**

Patrick Stump has never been truly comfortable in his skin. Then again, is anyone? Pete crawls out of his skin and into his head on a regular basis, and that's a harrowing journey every goddamn time. Andy hides his fair ginger skin under ink and mythical creatures and a point so fixed in time, space, and morality that his moral compass could put an atomic clock to shame. Joe can go up in smoke or turn in on himself so deeply that he slides between molecules of obsession and compulsion, bouncing around like a free electron until someone dives in and pulls his head out of his ass.

And Patrick? He's got troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match. He's accepted the fact that he'll never physically tower over most people or be as carelessly buff as Pete--his weight yo-yos like an arpeggio of full, round notes to satisfying flat tones, but never that angularity of the sharps like hipbones in low-slung jeans except for maybe once. And at that point in time, the haters who screamed "we liked you better fat" only hurt because it felt like they read his mind and threw his own private self-doubting words back in his face. His new, slimmer outside wrapping made no difference and might have even tipped the tone towards worse.

But for the most part, he's accepted his physical traits because he'd be a goddamn hypocrite if he didn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth when he told fans who struggled with their own body issues that the opinions of randos on the internets didn't define their beauty. 

At some point--some signing or M&G or tweet, some kind fan had called him "fluffy" and he'd adopted the term internally. And for a change, Pete hadn't overheard it so it never became a Pete nickname. He already had plenty of those, and Pete's careful respect of his body image--if not his body, because Pete's middle name was "boundaries and personal space are for other people"--granted him that small sense of privacy.

But there were other ways Patrick didn't fit his skin. Better ways. Like when his head filled with the music he heard all around him and at all times--melodies, harmonies, clips, samples, rhythms, loops of sound that became variations on a theme. Those times, his skin felt like a trash bag that trapped the part of him that wanted to soar and spiral and float like dandelion fluff in the wind created by sound waves pushing through air.

So when he stepped through the dressing room door and very emphatically out of his own skin, he didn't realize he'd miss it so damn much.

**

* * *

 

###  **Chapter 2**

At least he was in a bathroom. Prioritizing the after-show pee was a non-negotiable rider in the contract for every gig no matter how large or small (and no, Pete's pranks didn't count as "prioritizing" and never would). At first, he barely noted the lack of urinals--it wasn't the first ladies' room or women's locker room at a venue that had been commandeered for band use. But when he emerged from the stall to face the mirrors over the sink, expecting to grimace at the sweaty lines soaking his t-shirt through, he did _not_ expect to see that those lines--and that t-shirt--had curved in significantly _different_ directions than the image he was used to.

"Mother _fucker!_ " His voice came out an octave higher than he was used to (but not normally a terrible stretch for him--he had vocal range and he knew it). He turned on the water and splashed his face, hoping his eyesight had simply gotten worse or that the mirror was defective. But no--that chest was not the one he'd entered the stall with and--oh, shit--he unbuttoned his pants again.

Which was how Lyndsay Way found him with his jeans half down his hips, peeking into his sweat-soaked boxers and looking for a package that had somehow gotten stolen off his front porch while someone attached a brand-new balcony.

Her startled eyes met his in the mirror. "Oh shit, Gee is not gonna believe this."

"Lyndsay?" Patrick stood dumbly in front of the sink, the water still running. "Ah, er, nobody told me you were going to be at the show--it's good to see you--um--is that a new hairstyle?"

Lyndsay reached over and turned off the water. "Oh, Patrick. You really are the most polite guy, you know that?" She held out a paper towel. "Well, the sweetest _person_ , anyway." She turned to her own image in the mirror. "Ugh. I've never been a fan of poofy hair and this place is gonna be full of it."

Patrick took the paper towel and avoided his own reflection. "Thanks. Umm..." He curved his shoulders inward, not wanting to acknowledge the comparisons that she would make in their images. Belatedly, he hiked up his pants and fastened them around the roomier crotch--but tighter hips. _Fuck, how do women do this?_ "What's--"

She settled her hands on his shoulders. "First, I want you to breathe, because your face is on fire right now and if you pass out, I'm afraid you'll wake up and not be you." While he nodded and drew an exaggerated breath in through his nostrils, she searched his face. "We were expecting Hayley from Paramore, or even Nicole. She’s getting known enough. We shouldn't have assumed."

"What are you even talking about?" Maybe if she didn't say it, it wouldn't be true.

"Patrick--" she ducked her head to meet his eyes-- "this is one of those, um, _things_ that happen to, well, people _like us_ , you know?"

Patrick's stomach dropped out of its own bottom and his mind went back to the time when they learned what Warped Tour really stood for. How sometimes Pete's late-night ramblings about exposure and fame and Sandman turned out to be more literal than anybody realized. "Oh." He felt his features form into a scowl. "Goddammit. I thought we were done with this shit! We're not kids anymore! We're--"

"Yeah, we kinda are." Lyndsay glanced down at her chest. "Again. I haven't had a rack like this since before I had my kid. And I don't know if you've noticed, but you've _never_ had a rack like that."

The door to the restroom squealed open. "Fuck, Lynz! You said it and now it's a _thing_."

"It was a _thing_ anyway, and avoiding it just prolongs the inevitable," Lyndsay snapped.

Patrick's face burned to ash, but he glanced over her shoulder anyway just to see the next witness to his own incineration. Gerard Way stood scowling at his wife. As Patrick watched in horror, Gerard's ketchup-red hair-- _that's so ten years ago_ , Patrick thought, then felt bad for thinking it--shimmered on his head, becoming a vibrant artificial ginger and blossoming out into a bouffant that would have made Patrick's Great-Aunt Edna proud.

Between his face turning to hot lava and the new weight on his chest, Patrick felt his asthma kick in. "What--the fuck--is--"

Lyndsay put her hand on his back and rubbed soothing circles. "Okay, Patrick, just breathe. In and out. Pick a spot on the floor and focus."

"I can't--see the floor--because there's a pair of _goddamn_ _tits_ in the way!" His voice hit the higher registers without even a bit of strain. _Man, the acoustics in this bathroom are great! I should_ \--

If Patrick were alone in a dark room with his own brain, he'd have kicked the living shit out of it for that.

"Patrick, man. Just--don't freak out. The more you freak out, the more you stand out, and you don't want to stand out from the story right now." Gerard put a hand on his other shoulder and tilted Patrick's chin up.

Patrick met the other singer's concerned gaze. "My band?" He squeaked out.

Gerard nodded.

"Your band?"

Another nod. "Fucking Toro still has that goddamned mane of his and he gets to be a T-Bird. I'm stuck wearing a teeny t-shirt without the cleavage to make it look good. And a fuckin' beehive!"

Okay, Patrick thought. _So MCR is stuck in this mess with me, Joe, Andy, and Pete_ . "Lyndsay? How'd you get dragged into this mess? Are the--" _Oh God. I promised Elisa_ , he thought. "Are the wives and girlfriends--"

Lyndsay smoothed his hair back from his forehead, which was still sweaty, but an all new kind of terrified-beyond-coherence sweat. "No. This is a, well, I guess you could say a 'bandom-only' deal. Gee? Help me out?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick could see Lyndsay begin to rummage through a purse on the corner of one of the sinks. She pulled out a handful of gold tubes, compacts, and brushes and once again, Patrick was reminded of his Great-Aunt Edna and the ridiculously day-glo color palette on his great-aunt's face. Patrick was no stranger to make-up, in both stage and every-day use, but this shit looked like it belonged in a museum. _Or Great-Aunt Edna's purse_.

But Gerard pulled his focus back to him. "The _spouses_ \--" And here, Patrick felt bad for 'assuming heteronormativity' because he knew more than enough people who paid attention to how the assumptions could hurt and he didn't want to cause hurt. "Don't have enough mythic gravity to get pulled into this shit."

Lyndsay waved a hand. "Except for me, because I was dumb enough to want to live this life, too."

" _This life_ should come with a fucking _warning label_ ," Patrick muttered.

At this, Lyndsay snorted. "Yeah, like any of us would have heeded it."

Patrick realized she was right. For as much as this occasional... _epic weirdness_ happened, he still wouldn't trade it for a "real job" for any reason. "Okay, so...how do we get out of it? Because I'd really like my dick back at some point."

"We have to let it play out," Gerard said. "In case you hadn't caught on, we're trapped in nineteen fifty-eight."

Lyndsay's smile was half-grimace as she shook out a bundle of pink satin from on the hook in the last stall. She held out the jacket in Gerard's direction. Patrick caught a glimpse of loopy script and the words “Pink Ladies” as Gerard shrugged into it.

"And Grease is the Word."

**

* * *

 

###  **Chapter 3**

" _Grease_ ," Patrick said flatly. "You're telling me that this is _Grease?_ The movie? With--with--" he snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name of the lady who played the lead.

"Well, we hope it's the movie," Lyndsay said. "If it's the Broadway play, we might be a little more fucked, because some of the songs are different and some of the roles are different."

Patrick remembered the singer. "Olivia Newton-John. And John Travolta."

Gerard chuckled. "In this case, it's Joe Trohvolta."

Patrick's jaw dropped. " _Joe_ is the lead?" His voice squeaked with incredulity.

Lyndsay frowned. "Is that so hard to believe?" she asked gently.

Patrick stuttered. "I--no, I guess?" Red crept up his neck. The band did have some pretty heavy talks back when they were first floating the idea of coming off hiatus, and Patrick knew Joe struggled with the media's habit of ignoring him in favor of the Pete Wentz Entertainment Trainwreck Variety Show. Everybody loved--and loved to hate--Pete, Patrick was the voice, and Joe was...the giant mop of hair behind the guitar that sometimes got a word in edgewise.

But some part of Patrick didn't like the whole world knowing that Joe was the glue that held the band together. Pete was the glitter on top, and Andy was the armature underneath, while Patrick was the squeaker-- _and some of the bulk_ , he caught himself thinking. _Stop it_. But Joe was the one who'd pushed them all together in the first place, and kept them from falling apart until they all burned out back in '09. Joe was a big reason they had deflated in an airfield instead of gone up in a fiery crash in the middle of downtown LA.

"He fits the role, at least visually," Patrick said.

Lyndsay nudged him. "You don't think he's leading man material?"

While Patrick had escaped down memory lane, Lyndsay had taken the tubes and containers and make-up jars and started on his face. Now she shoved a puff the size of his face directly _onto_ his face and he coughed in a sudden, floral-scented cloud of powder. He sputtered, then answered. "I don't think he's _jackass_ material. Aren't all the male roles in this movie pretty much douchebags?"

It had been ages since he'd sat down to watch, but it was baked in to pop culture, so Patrick had a fleeting impression of bouffant hairstyles, poodle skirts, and guys with pompadours in leather jackets dance-fighting and groping girls in the backseats of cars. And that stupid mega-mix of the biggest songs being a favorite at the karaoke bar he went to with his wife's family to earn husbandly good-boy points.

"If that's short for insecure teenage boys played by thirty year olds in an era when toxic masculinity was the only game in town, then yes."

"Joe's one of the least insecure people I know." But even as he said it, Patrick began to doubt. _What if we're here for a reason? Are we slipping back into the Pete and Patrick show? Is Joe still happy being in the band?_ Of all of them, Joe had the most flexibility--he was an incredibly talented songwriter, could shred like nobody's business in a pop-punk band or with the best of the legends of metal, or he could kick his feet up on the couch and reign as king of the stay-at-home dads with his girls and Marie (who had been putting up with band shenanigans and weirdness almost as long as the band members themselves).

"Come on," Gerard said, rolling up the sleeves of his jacket. "I feel the narrative getting impatient."

Patrick didn't let himself notice until Gerard said it, but now it was out there, he could feel it. "But if Joe's cast in the lead, why am I Sandy Olsen?"

Gerard turned him towards the mirror. "Lynz, he almost doesn't need lipstick."

"I'm going with what the narrative wants. At least a little gloss." Lyndsay eyed him from the side. "And sorry dude, but you're gonna need to change."

"Isn't that the whole message of this goddamn movie?" he grumbled. "Change so you can get your man?" But he shucked his jeans--they were still sweaty anyway and it was almost a relief to feel the cool air swirling around his boxer shorts. If he could continue pointedly ignoring the extra room down there.

"Cheer up," Gerard said, eyeing him up and down. "At least your role seems to like cardigans as much as you do."

Patrick made a skeptical face. Lyndsay handed him a costume with a dry cleaner's bag over it and he tore into the paper to find a lot of off-white and daisy yellow which--he was already pale enough.

"Crinoline first," Lyndsay instructed, shaking out a large wad of fluffy netting and satin tape. While Lyndsay directed and Gerard fussed, Patrick got himself worked into a reasonable facsimile of Sandy Olsen with minimal drama, most of it surrounding the undeniable fact that not only did he have to wear a bra, but it was one of those Great-Aunt Edna bullet bras. But Lyndsay's tugging and adjusting and, "Lift and separate your own tits, Stump, this is as awkward for me as it is for you," ended up with Patrick facing the mirror and Gerard's fingers fumbling the clasp of a demure little necklace at his nape.

“Yeah, I’m not touching those things in front of my wife.” And Patrick had to laugh. Because it was unreal. This whole situation was unreal. _It’s not reality. Remember that and we might just make it through_.

Finally, Patrick had to look at himself in the ladies' room mirror. Focusing on the individual parts--boobs, dresses, this fucking narrative, the realization that if they hadn't "grown out" of this Weird Shit by now, it would probably never stop happening--had kept the full impact at bay up to now.

Patrick's jaw dropped as he took in his reflection.

For as much as he'd come to terms with his physical traits--his height, his baby face, the gingerness that made him almost literally combustible in the sunlight, and of course, the Stump family inheritance that told him he would always love carbs and wear them generously--old thinking patterns often resurfaced when he was stressed (stress-eating).

Bless his heart, Pete always seems to love his...squishiness, often in very public and embarrassing ways, but in quiet and meaningful ways, too. But his relationship with Pete was complicated enough as it was, and something they were trying not to talk about. Yet as he stared at himself in girl-form in the mirror, he started to see what Pete and maybe a few thousand Twitterati could see.

His skin glowed, tinged faint pink at his cheeks and glossy over the curve of his bottom lip. Behind his glasses, his eyes were big and stormy, framed with long, thick lashes. His hair fluffed out around his shoulders just like it did in 2005 (aka the Year of the Non-Haircut), except for the absence of his sideburns.

But the rest of him? Soft curves pushed out and dipped back, held in by a subtly-patterned buttoned blouse with a little round collar and the even softer knit fabric of the cardigan. The blouse swelled out over his bullet-bra and made his waist look like he had a waist. The skirt flared out from his hips and fluttered around his calves.

And Patrick felt...pretty.

Gerard met his eyes in the mirror. His gaze wasn't lewd, but Patrick's body wasn't his own and he shifted uncomfortably, self-conscious in a way he hadn't been in years. It definitely felt like Gee was checking him out.

Gerard shifted his eyes away. "Sorry, dude. It's just--you aren't half bad as a girl. I have this sudden urge to paint you on the side of a vintage airplane."

“What?”

“You know, like a pin-up girl.”

"Oh. Uh, thanks?" Patrick felt sweat start at the base of his spine and—irritatingly--underneath his new boobs.

“Fuck’s sake, Gee, I’m standing right here.” Lyndsay folded her arms. But her mouth remained soft and she flicked a pastel scarf in Gerard’s direction. “Here. Cover up your adam’s apple.”

Patrick glanced at his own throat in the mirror. His own adam’s apple wasn’t normally prominent, but he knew it was there (particularly when it was shaving time). But there was no trace of it in the mirror. And he couldn’t feel it, either.

The creeping realization hadn't gone away, and he hadn’t truly adjusted to it. It just camouflaged itself until Patrick let his guard down. The scent of lipstick--Great-Aunt Edna again--wafted towards his nose and his smooth throat combined, and reality-distortion chose that moment to strike. His eyes widened and panic sent sudden tremors through his entire body. _What if I'm stuck like this? What if I can't fit back into Patrick the Guy at the end of this? What if this is the one time where everything doesn't reset? What if I'm..._ better _this way?_

The edges of his vision darkened and the room suddenly felt ominously hot.

Gerard nudged him. "Easy, bro. It's the weight of the narrative, pushing you into the role. Don't fight it head-on. Bad things happen when you do."

"I don't--I don't want to be--" Patrick shoved the words through suddenly numb lips. He couldn't shove enough of them to encompass the huge weight of not wanting to wear someone else's skin. He had enough trouble fitting into his own, most days. So he just motioned to all of him.

"Get through the narrative," Lyndsay said. "We can't fight it directly, but we _can_ subvert it. Change the key and make it a completely different song, y'know?"

His heart slowed the panic-attack race and he felt himself solidify again. He nodded and Lyndsay dabbed at his face with a tissue. "Okay, I'm good." He stared at himself in the mirror again. "We will get through this. Joe and I have been in weirder places and--wait, shouldn't we do a--a Mouseketeer roll call or something?"

"You're the last Fall Out Boy. My band is accounted for."

"So Joe's the lead. What about Andy? Is Andy okay with this?" Patrick couldn't picture Andy Hurley being enthusiastic about 1950s suburban white-bread America no matter what his role.

Gerard nodded. "He's Joe's wing-man. Andy takes this stuff in stride. He'll keep Joe on the level."

Patrick nodded. "Good." The narrative pressed down on him, giving him more warm feelings about Joe and leaving him with a longing to see his guitarist that both he and Joe would have relentlessly mocked in a normal situation. "I can feel the story, I think. It wants me to--" _pine for Joe Trohman_ \-- "get out of here."

Gerard popped the collar of his pink satin jacket and fluffed his newly-copper hair. "Just a word about the, uh, NPCs. The roles that aren't played by your band or ours are part of the story. Like, its agents."

"More like Agent Smiths."

"You have less to worry about since the Narrative saw fit to give you the parts to really look the part, but those of us less fortunate have to be careful. If the story senses you're acting too out of character, it will push back."

"How?" Patrick was easing into the feeling of maintaining identity while the narrative pressed down on him. _You’re just playing a role. This is just like filming a video_.

Lyndsay shook her head. "Either act the part of your free will, or the part will take your free will away." She glanced at her husband in the mirror. "Gee's seen it."

Patrick took a deep breath. "I feel the songs," he said. He was about to ask if that was normal, but realized it was a fucking stupid question to ask. Instead, he began to hum. "Bump, ba-dum, ba-dum, be-doo-bee--Oh, God, stop me please?"

Lyndsay shoved him towards the door of the restroom. "Sorry, Sandra Dee. It's showtime."

Music in his head, he could work with. But the flashbacks? "This is going to be harder than I thought." He followed Gerard out of the ladies' room and into the locker-lined hallway of an American high school.

"You can do it. Just don't make eye-contact with the NPCs."

Patrick closed his eyes. It was easy to want to avoid the flat, snakelike gazes of the students that filled the hall, and even block out their nonsense murmurs. But when he closed his eyes... "I have _pictures_ in my head. Memories. In my _brain_. That I _never experienced_ , but I _can't unsee_."

"Yeah?" Lyndsay said, her voice pitching to an unusual register from her normal speaking voice. "Like what?" They emerged into a sun-filled courtyard filled with tables and benches and lunch trays and Patrick went to hell and begged the devil to take him but Satan just laughed and sent him back up with more visuals of Joe Trohman frolicking in surf.

Patrick fought down the blush. "Like summer lovin'." Oh fuck. He would never in any universe think it was a good idea to use the word "lovin'" (dropping the 'g' at the end, no less).

Gerard linked arms with him. "Kick up that poodle skirt, Patrick Stump, and tell me more, tell me more."

And the devil made him sing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What happens when 1950's morality wrapped in 1970's aesthetic meets 2018's awareness in 2006's bodies?


	3. Second Banana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete was always ready to step back when Patrick was ready to step into the spotlight, but he never expected he'd be playing second banana in a story where none of them are suited to their roles, but they all know their lines. And the lines between the people and the roles are getting blurry...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pete would absolutely make a kickass Rizzo, and you can't tell me any different.  
> So the formatting is going to be a bit different, because the characters and scenes are starting to swap back and forth. I've been trying to limit the chapters to one main character focus, so I'm breaking chapters when the "camera" cuts to different scenes.

 

The biggest open secret in a life lived in open secrets was that Pete Wentz only played a grown-up on teevee. He joked incessantly about being Peter Pan and a boy wonder, but the truth hid in plain sight. Pete was never a grown-up, even when he was doing his best at it.

The other, only slightly less-open secret is that Pete secretly--or maybe not-so-secretly--loves it when the Weird Shit happens.

Sure, ever since his kids came along, he's had some pretty conflicted feelings about the Weird Shit. There's always that off-chance that whatever Capital-W Weirdness will end up being somehow permanent and he'll be cut off from his kids. But there's also a chance that something awful will happen on the road, too. That wakes him up in panicked sweat and anxiety spirals more times than worrying about the relatively rare Special Events.

What he never imagined was that one of those Special Events wouldn't include the whole band. His four brothers in arms in so many ways (and some he could only wish for in the dark). But he couldn't find Patrick at all, and the hot California sun beating down on the picnic tables was baking worst-case scenarios into his brain.

Because here he was, in a tight vee-neck tee, a pink satin jacket, and a goddamn pencil-skirt that showed off his ass in such an epic way that he had to keep his fists balled up in his pockets to keep from spanking himself, and Patrick was nowhere around to see it.

At least he'd found Joe and Andy, and half of My Chem. And Mikeyway knew enough to keep them all from accidentally destroying themselves or the universe. Speaking of, Mikey jerked his head towards the picnic tables. "Best get going, kids. show's about to start."

Pete glanced down. "Hey guys, is my nutsack ruining the line of this pencil skirt or what?"

Gerard stood, cigarette dangling from his bottom lip. "God, you're a fuckin' mess, Wentz."

Pete sniffed. "Am not."

Way slid the satiny pink jacket off Pete's shoulders and tied it around his waist. "There. Get a girdle from Wardrobe. Look for a discreet door in any of the bathrooms. And for fuck's sake, go to the ladies room and not the gents'. The less you agitate the NPCs the better."

"I'll keep that in mind," Pete muttered. The Narrative prompted him towards the tables where NPCs were assembling for lunch. "Where's my lunchbox? Anybody seen Patrick?"

Gerard gave him a shove. "Get out there. I'm right behind you. Watch for the Jan."

Pete stumbled out and the scene shifted into a high school lunch scene. He found himself carrying a tray with the stupid little milk carton and something that looked institutionally unappetizing. Thank small favors he sported his sunglasses again, because Lyndsey Way scared the living shit out of him when she sidled up to him and hummed a few bars of "La Bamba," then muttered. "Don't lose your shit, Wentz, just let the Narrative feed you your lines and remember to hip-check, not head-butt or else things will get ugly."

Pete's mind whirled. _Hip-check? Head-butt?_   Lyndsey quietly reached over and tipped his gaping mouth shut and hissed, "Play along, already."

Pete met the eyes of the Jan character and his mouth went dry. Her eyes were flat. At the same time, Pete could see...Something...peering out from behind them. His gut suddenly clenched. Whatever that Something was behind Jan's eyes, it wasn't human. And he had its attention.

He looked away and recognized the subtle pressure of the Narrative pushing him to finish off the song Lyndsey had been humming. He opened his mouth and a bad, off-key rendering of "Ba-da-bada's" came out without him meaning to even try. But then the Jan was asking him about Danny Zuco and Pete felt an intense rush of jealousy from out of nowhere. Humiliation, embarrassment, and a sore heart-feeling that insisted he cover up pain he felt from being dumped by Joe Fucking Trohman. "Ancient history," he snapped. Like, what the fuck--he got what the Way brothers were saying about the story wanting to be told, but he was _playing_ a part, not _living_ it!

Lyndsey gave him an encouraging nod. "History sometimes repeats itself."

_Never believe your own hype_. Pete muttered under his breath over his suddenly-lost appetite and sinking stomach as he heard Gerard's voice coming up behind him. "Hey girls!"

"Frenchie!" Jan's bright smile had a few too many teeth in Pete's estimation. Beside him, Lyndsey tensed.

"Girls, this is--" Gerard's voice seemed to slide into the appropriate register for the role.

Pete's, however, did not. He came out sounding just like himself. Just like a dude. Thank Christ, because when he turned around and saw past Gerard's bubble 'do, the frothy confection of golds, sunshine yellow daisies, whites and baby blues anchored him. The strange heartbreak over Joe shifted inside him and Pete reached for the familiar rush of warmth he always felt when seeing his best friend. That belonged to _him_ , not whatever else was powering this place.

"Stumpy Olsen?" He leapt to his feet, relieved enough to want to embrace his best friend and check him for injuries. But as he tore his eyes away from Patrick's, took in the rest of the picture. "Mother _fucker_ , you've got tits! _Nice_ ones, too!"

A low rumble shook the ground beneath their feet at his involuntary exclamation. It wasn't the first time Pete felt the earth move over Patrick, but it was definitely the first time he felt it over Patrick's tits. _Patrick's never had tits before_ , one reasonable part of him told the rest of him. _And that earth moving isn't a good sign, either_.

Gerard shot him a scowl while Lyndsey covered for him. "This is Jan and I'm Marty, and that's Rizzo!"

Pete stumbled back into his role at Patrick's alarmed face. He shot Pete a scowl, then turned to the Jan and shifted his features like night and day. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Pete heard the pitch of Patrick's voice go up and a little bit breathless and fuck if he didn't seem like he was...an uncertain schoolgirl?

Gerard and Lyndsey were bantering about Lyndsey's cat-eye glasses--which looked great on her, if anybody'd ask Pete. But when they did--when Lyndsey asked if they made her look smarter, Pete's mouth opened again and somebody else's words came out. "Naah. You can still see your face."

Gerard made a huffing sound and Pete's gaze slid over to him, stricken. He bit down on his tongue and hissed, embarrassed and humiliated at his own mouth as he mouthed back to Lyndsey, _I'm so sorry_.

Lyndsey, bless her, just shook her head. "It's the narrative, Rizzo. You can only nudge it." Her sympathetic look shifted at the sound of an overly-enthusiastic, "Hiiiiiii!" coming from the leader of a pack of--fuck, what did Gerard call them? NPCs--coming their way.

"Shit!" Pete muttered.  The narrative took over and he said something about the trio approaching them. He found the time to mutter a hasty warning to his best friend, who was looking up with a charmed, open expression and a disconcerting lack of Stumpness. "Patrick! Look at me," he said, against the pressure of the story filling up his throat as he turned to greet the new girls. But he didn't regain control of his mouth until the new NPC, Patty, had already muscled her way in between Patrick and Gerard.

Patrick simply stared up with his usual friendly expression and a layer of lip gloss.

Pete began to panic. Gerard shifted closer. "We need to keep him close."

Lyndsey leaned across Pete to consult her poodle-skirted husband. "Is he--" she glanced towards Patrick and back to Pete and Gerard. "--under?" Her brow furrowed behind the cat-eye glasses.

Gerard followed her gaze. Pete followed Gerard's. He saw Patrick's eyes flicker to Gerard and back. Pete half-listened to Gerard and Lyndsey, but his attention was fixed on Patrick. _Look at me, please. See me. Be Patrick_.

Patrick's eyes cleared. Pete released the breath he was holding. "We can't leave him. He's too pure to be--"

"He's not under yet," Gerard said grimly. "But we gotta move this along." He glanced at Pete. "You think you're ready for a number?"

"What, like singing and dancing?" Pete scrunched up his face. "Will it get Patrick out of that--that hypnosis?" He looked to where Patrick was nodding along with the Jan and the Patty and his smile looked a little pasted-on. If they were in an interview, Pete would have swooped in with an attention-grabbing comment or misdirection away from whatever topic made Patrick uncomfortable. Singing and dancing in a pencil skirt with his nuts rucked up under a girdle sounded like a pretty big distraction to him. "I can do it."

"Hey Patsy, how'd your summer go?"

"Oh God," Pete muttered to Lyndsey. "Andy and Joe are off doing the other half of this, aren't they?" Andy Hurley, rock and roll's radical philosopher, was locked into a role that was steeped in male chauvinism as the wing man to Joe's lead. So many things could go wrong with that.

But Patrick answered Gerard's question. "I went to the beach and met a boy there," and for a moment, Pete rolled under the tide because it was _Patrick_ whose voice had gone soft about meeting a boy at the beach, and in the course of fifteen years together, Pete had been on _so many_ beaches with Patrick that he couldn't help--

"He was special."

_I'm special!_ Pete thought. But Patrick's gaze went off into the middle distance and Pete knew his best friend wasn't talking about him and a wave of bitterness rose up and latched onto the story already forming. "There ain't no such thing." It was a line, the story was driving, but in that moment, Pete felt like it was truth.

The NPCs swarmed around them as the music started to play out of nowhere and Lyndsey rolled her eyes in sympathy. Pete had no trouble sinking into the little stormcloud in the middle of the number as Patrick rhapsodized about a saccharine summer full of activities of credulous chastity. Pete kept trying to meet up with Patrick--just a touch of hands could maybe bring his friend back out of the story--but the NPCs kept getting in the way and finally, he kicked his feet up onto the bench and gave the Patty a shove with one kitten-heeled shoe. The resulting dominoes knocked Patrick into a trash bin and he--she--stumbled to his--her-- _no, fuck it_ , Pete thought. _Patrick's still Patrick, even if he's wearing a girl-suit right now_. 

At the end of the number, when the NPCs settled back into ignoring them, Pete tipped up his sunglasses, searching for Patrick behind the eyes of the blushing ingenue. "So who's the lucky guy? Anyone we know?"

As soon as Patrick opened his mouth, Pete knew what he was supposed to say. _Danny Zuco_. And the girls were supposed to titter while Pete made a remark about miracles and meeting your twu wuv or some shit.

But the narrative couldn't be defied, only nudged. "Joe. Joe Trohman."

Gerard gasped. Lyndsey squeaked. And Pete flinched.

There was no way to explain the jealous fury that twisted inside him. The Jan-bot turned her flat snake-eyes on Pete and Pete didn't have to act as if he weren't hiding a memory of kissing Joe Trohman on the back of a motorcycle. It was a memory that he never experienced--doubted anybody had experienced past 1985 and never with Joe Trohman--and would not have been his first choice if he would have made out with Joe Trohman. In fact, "making out on a motorcycle" sounded like a dare they both would have scoffed at in their youthful Jackass days for being unimaginative and lame.

But here he was, sending Patrick a jealous glare through narrowed eyes and a curled-up lip. "Maybe if you wish real hard, dreams do come true." He stood up and kicked away from the table, the skirt hobbling his movements and the heels not fun anymore.

"Do you really think so, Frenchie?" Patrick asked Gerard.

Lyndsey put a restraining hand on Pete's arm. "Hey," she whispered. "It'll be okay. We'll get through this. You know he puts his best into every performance and this is no different. This is a _performance_. A _role_. Remember that."

_It sure as hell doesn't feel like just a show_. Pete shot Patrick another glance. "I know," he said. "I just hope _he_ remembers it's just a role."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned it's not easy to write out singing and dancing? This has been a weird and wacky idea from the start, and it's probably gonna get weirder from here.
> 
> I know my updates are sporadic, but I'm letting this thing pull me where it wants me to go. Not gonna lie, either, there are some twisty corners I'm being led down. I live for comments and kudos, so please be generous!


	4. Wingman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Andy, stuck in the wingman role of Kenickie, watches helplessly as his bandmates slice painful wounds into each other, helpless against the force of the story...or are they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder that all this started because Joe Trohman wore a pink butterfly-collared shirt in the Dance Dance video. I have no excuses and I make no apologies.

 

Andy stared as Joe popped his collar and tweaked one stray curl from the glorious mane that had fallen into his face in defiance of the narrative and the strongest of hair styling products while one step below him--and about ten inches--Andy waited with narrowed eyes as Ray Toro struggled not to ask for the gory details of Joe's role's summer fling.

"C'mon, tell us all the horny details!" Toro facepalmed as the line escaped. " _Inacompletelyrespectfulwayemphasizingyouremotionalconnectiontothelovelylady_."

One of the jocks--jock-bots, Andy was thinking of calling them--prowled closer. While Andy had no reason to doubt the Way brothers' knowledge of the situation, he also wouldn't consider his job as Fall Out Boy's protector if he didn't vet some of the details himself. Hence the bleachers.

As far as Andy knew, the movie (which he hadn't seen since he was a boy and had to watch with a musical-theater obsessed cousin) was full of the typical patriarchal, racist bullshit centered around nostalgia. Frank and Mikey hurriedly gave him a run-down of his role as the best friend and wing man of the main male lead, the subplot of his own story with Rizzo--at least he had a sub-plot with Pete and not one of the NPCs like Toro--and how things worked when the narrative was driving. "Never directly defy the narrative. If you can't play along, you have to subvert. If the narrative senses you're not playing along, it'll subvert you until you're part of it. Don't become part of it."

So Andy, like all good drummers, looked for the beats, and listened to the spaces between to see where he could change up the tempo and add a few riffs of his own.

One of those riffs was taking the current exercise in dick-waving and making it less uncomfortable for Joe. Andy set his jaw and shoo-bop-bopped along the bleachers, sweating under what he sincerely hoped was vegan leather.  

He recognized the beats and the lyrics came to him as if the narrative were helping him along which, of course. It wanted all its players to be in the right mindset.

Andy would never be in the right mindset for something like this--this posturing. It was all just a mask for so much insecure, boys-don't-cry bullshit. _Everybody_ was nervous about their first love. _Nobody_ was comfortable with intimacy they didn't quite understand. Teenage hormones and societal boundaries that shifted under your feet like quicksand and nobody just opening their yaps and fucking _talking_ to each other. He couldn't count the nights he'd started with kisses and put abrupt brakes on because someone failed to assume their consent was a requirement. "Who is she? Where is she now?"

Joe stared off into the middle distance and set his jaw. "Wonder what she's doin' now...Summer dreams, ripped at the seams..." He sighed and Andy rolled his eyes so hard he could see his brain. _Come on, Joe, snap out of it._ She's _in New York, with your kids_.

"Those summer niiiiiiiiights!"

Andy's lip curled up. "Tell me more. _Like her fuckin' name_." He scowled at his own fists, which of their own accord shifted into Jazz Hands. _I'm never forgiving Pete for this_.

Not that Pete was really to blame--there was no rhyme or reason to the Weird Shit that swept them up ever since the first time the van had slipped into Liminal Space on a lonesome highway in the middle of a cornfield at the ass-end of nowhere.

Patrick liked to tell the story that they played for one fan and her dad. For all the world, Andy wished he'd remembered it that way because playing for one fan and her dad sounded infinitely preferable to dozens of flat-eyed gazes from cardboard cutouts of people who'd just...appeared. Pete had made the mistake of moshing into one as a joke at the end of the night. The cornstalk propping up the cutout did not understand the concept of a mosh pit and, well... Pete had discovered that corn was a type of grass, and there was a reason that grass had _blades_ and not leaves.

Even though Andy had chuckled when he said that was Pete's "blood sacrifice" to get them out of the ramshackle venue, it didn't feel like a joke and they were all a bit more wary after that.

The "Children of the Corn" DVD got left behind for the next tour.

"Patrick Stuuuh--andy Olsen."

Andy shook his head in a double-take. Toro caught his eye and jerked his head over to the top rail of the back bleacher. He turned his head to glance down into the courtyard where girl-NPCs, along with Pete and Gerard, were skipping between the tables. He zeroed in on the girl at the center of the flurry as the final notes from the other side of the duet floated up and he recognized Patrick's unmistakable falsetto. _The curves are new_ , he thought as he made the connection. But Patrick always had moves, even when he insisted he didn't. _Well hell_. That answered his question as to what role Patrick was going to play in this farce.

The NPCs, satisfied with the progression of the number, receded from the close-knit pack of T-Birds that made up Joe, Andy, Toro, and Frank Iero. He slung an arm around Joe's shoulder, relieved that the NPCs hadn't caught Joe's slip, but concerned that Joe didn't seem to deliberately change from naming Patrick to naming Patrick's character. Joe snaked a returning arm around his waist and held on tight for a bare second. Andy squeezed, sending silent vibes promising to anchor his younger bandmate. 

Then Joe pulled away and popped his collar in a manner he'd never done with a straight face, like, ever (when Pete used to pop his collars, Joe would sometimes stand behind him and mimic until Pete elbowed him in the stomach). "Yeah, well..." he trailed off, looking around with a vaguely confused frown. "Chicks, man. You know."

_Never directly defy the narrative_ , Iero said. Video games came to Andy's mind. The games he played had lots of stories and side-quests, but they happened in between scripted events--boss battles and events that had to happen in the game no matter what the story you told in your head might have been saying. But at the same time, no one could take the story in your head away, so if your character had an off-screen friendship with the pretty NPC tavern wench in your head, the game couldn't take that from you. Unless your actions and scripted events caused the enemies to burn the whole town to the ground.

Andy tended not to finish the games that made him feel like his character was railroaded into events. He found them boring. He played games that made him feel as if his choices mattered. He might be fighting the same boss at the end, but his choices determined his companions, his special powers, his bonuses or penalties, and even the reason why he was fighting. All through sideways moves. "So what's next?"

Iero pushed away from where he was watching the scene in the courtyard below. "Loverboy here has to be reunited with his summer fling. Hilarity ensues."

Andy nudged Joe down the bleachers as the sun began to set unnaturally fast. A bonfire flared up at the other end of the football field. "Come on, then. Looks like we've got a date with destiny."

**

Toro and Iero didn't have to pretend to mock the cheerleading fight song as they made their way around the bonfire. Andy didn't feel as confident in his scorn of the situation as pair after pair of dead eyes met his, sized him up, and looked for the parts of him that didn't fit. His tongue made nervous swipes behind his bottom lip, searching for a labret he hadn't worn in a while and missing the clack of it against his teeth. 

The drumbeats are off, he realized. Riffs, runs, and rhythms nearly forgotten from his marching band days came from the drumline on the opposite side of the fire's glow, punctuated by brass blasts that echoed through the night that weighed on the back of his neck with increasing pressure. He spotted a cluster of pink jackets just a second too late. 

Pete wore an expression Andy hadn't seen since the other man's features were sharp with youth and reckless self-destruction. "Hey Trohman. Got a surprise for you." Pete grabbed the white-clad person next to him and swung him around to the front of the group.

Joe lit up like stadium pyro. "Patrick!"

"Joe?" Patrick wore a fuzzy white sweater with something red on it that showed off-- _okay, wow, Patrick, curves do look on you_.

So did unbridled joy. Patrick stared up at Joe as if he'd hung the moon. Patrick stared up at Joe the way he still sometimes looked at Pete.

Pete, who stood behind Patrick in the gaggle of pink-jacketed girls and Gerard Way with a smirk curling up the corner of his mouth that Andy never hoped to see again. Pete at his most destructive, daring the world to catch him when he jumped off an amp stack, standing drunk in front of a wall with arms spread wide and bare ass hanging out before a firing squad of paintball guns wielded by his friends and not-so-subtly hoping one of the paintballs might be a real bullet for him to bite. The Pete they thought they'd all nailed into a coffin along with the '16 Candles' video.

"Patrick--what are you--I thought--" Joe began in a familiar overly-excited voice that Andy would never not be genuinely pleased to hear.

His expression dragged Andy right back to a shitty Bingo hall with a low ceiling and a hundred sixty screaming kids and Pete jumping from the amp stack, his bass clobbering Patrick right between the eyes. Patrick had been turned at the time, so Andy caught him in profile as his head went up and back from the neck of Pete's bass, his face wearing a look of slack-jawed surprise. 

"We had a change of plans," Patrick said, excitement and joy lighting up his face.

Joe's smile wore an answering light. "That's--that's _amazing!_ " He turned towards Andy. "I can't believe--"

Andy remembered with terrifying clarity the moment that whatever made Patrick _Patrick_ behind his eyes was knocked out of the cockpit by the flying bass. At the time, Patrick's knees locked and kept him from crumpling like a set of bagpipes in a ball cap until Patrick took the stick again.

This time, whatever made Patrick _Patrick_ behind his eyes had stepped away, but _something else stepped in_.

When Andy met Joe's eyes, the same vertigo hit him. _Joe's not here right now, please leave a message after the tone_.

Joe's light went out. Not faded, not changed. Went _out_. A mask slipped over his features and he stared at Andy as if he were a stranger. "Wow. Yeah, uh, that's cool, baby." He turned back to Patrick. "You know how it is...rockin' and rollin'..."

Andy remembered the movie scene. It was dumb and obvious and no less dumb and obvious now and Patrick should have been laughing about it and calling him an asshole. Joe should have been playing it up for irony's sake but Patrick's face crumpled in a very real crushed expression.

And Patrick...wasn't home.

"Danny?"

Beside Andy, Toro facepalmed. "Oh God," he muttered as Joe made the worst of the dad-jokes to ever have erupted from his Trohman brain, only it was completely serious.

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

Andy looked away and found himself staring into the empty-eyed sneer of the NPC and scowled, turning away. _It isn't Joe, and that's not Patrick. They're roles_. Iero caught him by the jacket and swung him back around.

"Where's the Danny I met at the beach?" Patrick's distress glowed as bright as the bonfire a few yards away, his face as crimson as one of his pom-poms, which he held defensively in front of his very nice-looking chest. 

Andy knew Joe--had known Joe for half his life. In the course of that half-life, in close quarters, one couldn't help but discover at least hints of the other's tastes in porn, no matter how much respect each gave the other's boundaries and space. Joe was not a man who would pass up a well-formed rack. Especially not in favor of scoring 'cool points' with a bunch of dudes, three-fourths of whom would not be impressed, no matter what the story said.

"Easy," Iero murmured in his ear. "Lateral moves. They're both fighting this and losing."

Joe laughed. "I do not know. Maybe you should put out a missing persons ad." The sarcasm dripping from his voice did not sound good coming out of the mouth that had nothing but praise for Patrick when he called Andy a few years back to tell him about the Soul Punk show he'd just seen.

Andy thought that was a good idea. _Lost: one band. Last seen: drowning in a vat of toxic masculinity._

Patrick, apparently, had enough. "You're a fake and a phony and I wish we'd _never met!_ " He threw his pom-poms at Joe. The NPC hooted, one of the girls laughed, and Pete flicked his gaze up at Joe through narrowed eyes, challenge in his whole body that Andy hadn't seen since the days when Pete pushed himself in front of Patrick and any number of randos with his body language shouting _hands off, he's mine_.

As Patrick ran off, Andy stared helplessly at Pete, sauntering away with sharp backward glances towards Joe and the boys. Possessive Pete, pissing territorial over Patrick, was not a time Andy wanted to return to. Andy frowned in the direction of the escaping girls and turned to Frank. "How do I lateral move against the story when I'm not sure they want to fight themselves?"

Frank pulled him towards the trash heap of a car he was supposed to be more excited about than girls. "Remind them of who they are, even in the confines of the story. Patrick's still Patrick underneath the makeup, and so is Joe."

_And so is Pete_. He didn't voice this to Iero--some things were 'what happens in the band, stays in the band.' "This isn't what either of them would want."

"Things were supposed to happen this way," Frank said. "Everyone was playing their role." He popped the heavy door of the Thunderbird open and gestured for Andy to take the wheel. "Your love boat awaits, Captain Steubing."

Andy shook his head and slid into the leather seat of the oil tanker on wheels. "Jesus," he muttered. "Let's not invite any more stories from the seventies to fuck up our lives, Iero."

Ray Toro patted his shoulder. "It's just playing a role."

Andy glanced in the direction Pete had left. _God, I hope so_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they're infrequent. No, they're not easy to write. Yes, I'm working at a number of different levels between story and meta-textuality and trying to make prose out of a musical.


	5. Hoplessly (Hopeful) Devoted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Narrative pulls Pete along in his role as the rejected Rizzo. The Mean Girl act is just an act, even in the storyline, but it still cuts. Wounds that only look healed and maybe the Narrative was more accurate in its casting than any of them realized.

Pete hadn't enjoyed a "sleepover" in decades. Not since "jumping on the couch, hopped up on sugar" and "watching all the Friday the 13th movies in a row" and "sneaking out into the backyard at 3 AM" counted as rebellious acts. But even though his memories of the early days of sharing an apartment with Patrick and Joe had that golden hue of nostalgia (and the pixelation of low-resolution video from his hand-held while executing the pranks like drilling the peephole in Patrick's door and the Invasive Shower Episode and some early pilot-attempts at what would later become Porn Ninja), there was a difference to them from this.

For one thing, Patrick kept going what Lindsay referred to as "under" - slipping into a role that bothered Pete on a level so deep his guts curdled in fear. Patrick, like Sandy Olsen, was desperate to be liked. So very desperate that he'd agreed to let Gerard pierce his ears. At first, Pete egged him on as a lark, knowing full well that Warped Tour prankage went as follows: 1.) Pete gets a bright idea about doing something very stupid; 2.) Pete recruits partners in crime and sells said bright idea; 3.) Patrick, inevitably, steps in and throws cold water over the bright idea, all the minions, and Pete before things get too out of hand.

Patrick does not go along with the idea. At least, not terribly far. Patrick either puts the brakes on the idea when it approaches bodily harm or property damage past a certain magnitude, or Patrick withdraws from the field altogether. But Pete also knows where Patrick's hard limits live, and there are places he does not go for laughs. One of those places is Patrick's self-esteem. From the moment they met, Pete knew the way he knew the inside of his own head that while Patrick could take care of himself on the surface, he was the thing that stood between the outside world and the soft, easily-wounded inside of Patrick where the most wonderful parts lived. And Pete took that job very seriously.

But this Patrick, wearing an ankle-length nightgown and a matching robe with ribbons and fussy lace--as adorable as it is--does not withdraw from the field or utter even a peep of protest. Instead, he looks up at Pete with wide, innocent eyes. "Are--are you sure it's safe?" he asks in a breathless voice. Trusting. Begging silently for an acceptance that Pete had never from the moment they first knew each other withheld even one iota.

This Patrick _groveled_. "I'm not so sure about penetration--"

And Pete was dragged back to a sweat-scented van and a hot itch in his crotch and the hot weight of Patrick's body pinning his, sour beer and sweet-dark licorice scenting his words. _We can do whatever...doesn't have to mean anything_. 

_Could mean everything_. Even then, Pete heard the uncertainty in the young singer's words. Pete shuddering as their bodies exchanged sweat and hormones and whiffs of pot smoke. Pete the experienced one, trembling at Patrick's guitar-callused fingertips working inside his jeans and finding no underwear as a barrier. Pete wanting to be touched so badly, and both terrified and fascinated by Patrick's erection grinding into his thigh where he'd only ever encountered wet hot girl-parts before. The size of it...the _girth_... _I'm not so sure about penetration_.

Patrick's eyes, red-rimmed from post-show high, contact-high, and a peculiar brand of sly bravery lubricated by alcohol, gleaming in the light from the street.  _Never pegged you for a goody two-shoes, Wentz_.

Pete remained ambivalent, but not so much that he didn't grind against Patrick's hand or swallow the other boy's kisses or hesitate to palm that intimidating erection through Patrick's jeans until they soaked the already-sweaty denim between them, Pete dizzy with the bleach-smell of semen and Patrick-taste of licorice on his tongue.

Now, wearing a borrowed nightshirt and a pair of nylon panties, Pete opened his mouth and said, "Don't be such a goody two-shoes," and almost drowned in his own shame.

Thank the story gods that Gerard couldn't go through with it. He pricked Patrick's earlobe, the blood welled up, and Patrick and Gerard both shrieked like the girls they weren't. Now Patrick was locked in the bathroom after shrieking, "Dude! I can't believe you just did that to me!" at Gerard, and glaring furiously at Pete. "And I can't believe you let him!"

Pete had somehow gained a wig perched on his head when he wasn't paying attention, courtesy of the story. "Look at me, I'm Stumpy P. I was supposed to pop your cherry!" he called out the last bit with an edge of resentment.

Gerard sent him a sharp look. "You mean you guys never--"

Pete slouched against the wall behind the bookcase he was sitting on. "Fooled around." On the outside, Pete gave every indication that he had sealed up the peculiar ache in the middle of his soul where shards of Patrick lodged dangerously close to his heart. He no longer let the pull of those shards draw him too near Patrick in public or on stage. In private, Pete tucked memories from a sweaty van and a cramped tour bus and long, alcohol-fueled summers around his heart--a mnemonic arc reactor for his Tony Stark chest that kept the shrapnel of Patrick from cutting him clean.

"I thought for sure..." Way trailed off.

"Lot of almosts," Pete mumbled. His mouth formed around words that mocked Patrick's reluctance to engage in teenage necking that didn't sync with the memories Pete was fighting to hold onto. _It wasn't Patrick who needed the excuse to break down the inhibitions, was it, Wentz?_ "I put my filthy paws all over his silky drawers." Pete grabbed his panty-clad crotch for effect and couldn't decide whether it was weird or not to enjoy the silky rub of nylon undies against his balls. 

Patrick emerged from the bathroom, looking a little less green around the gills and glared at Pete. "Stop making fun of me!" He clutched the lacy neckline of his nightgown-- _peignoir_ , Pete's brain supplied. He knew without needing confirmation that Patrick would have corrected him with the proper French word, and pronounced it flawlessly.

Pete tugged the wig from his head, sudden sweat making his scalp itch. "Patrick--"

"This isn't funny, Rizz--"

Pete's balls, inside the nylon undies, shivered up closer to his body. "Pete," he whispered. "I'm _Pete_. And you're _Patrick_."

"I thought you were my friends!" With a flounce of his fluttery nightgown, Patrick stormed out, a cloud of curlers dropping from his head as he turned.

The room was silent for a moment, until the Jan grinned soullessly. "Funny stuff, Rizz."

Pete clutched at the blonde wig, holding it protectively over his junk as if it contained a lifeline to Patrick by virtue of being roughly the shade of his hair. The Jan waggled her eyebrows. "Ahh, she'll get over it. It's just funnin', right? _Just_. _Funnin'_." At her last words, the lights flickered, plunging the bedroom into darkness except for the cherry on Gerard's cigarette.

Pete stuttered, feeling the song lyrics bubble up behind his teeth. "Elvis! Elvis, Let me be," he sang in a falsetto he really could not handle. The lights came back up and the world started again and he heard the back door slam to punctuate Patrick's retreat.

Under the gaze of the Jan, Pete felt himself start to go under. Jealousy of Patrick--taking the lead role, getting the hero's attention--felt alien to him. Angry at Patrick, yes. Furious at himself, thousands of different ways. Even resentful of how much control Patrick wanted at times in the studio. But Pete was never jealous of his best friend. Only jealous of the other people who lay claim to him because they'd never have that secret, sweaty darkness between drunken bravado and terror at the start of something huge.

"Keep that pelvis far from me!" Gerard came to his rescue by harmonizing, drawing the Jan's gaze away from Pete. Pete flicked his own eyes towards the elder Way and found the redhead regarding him with a curious and strange expression.

_Don't go back there_ , he told himself. _You can't. There's no coming back from that a second time_. Overwhelmed by how much he needed Patrick to be his everything and terrified that the weight of that need would crush the younger man. And then his fears came true. Patrick needed to run dry before Pete sucked him dry out of neediness, so Pete had to become nothing.

"I didn't trust, got mixed up in lust--shoulda let him have all of me." Pete sang the words to the tune, fighting against the story's pull just enough to nudge it off-track.

Gerard eyed him, not unkindly, and still doing that ridiculous French-inhale thing that the script called for and Pete sort of found distracting, especially since Gerard's lips looked really good in that shade of lipstick and Gerard's fucking wife was right there on the bed in a babydoll nightie and a silk jacket that said "Korea" on the back. 

And Patrick Fucking Stump's girl-voice could be heard from the courtyard below sounding every bit like the plaintive fallen angel's that it always did as he crooned "Hopelessly Devoted" and Pete felt like he'd written the lyrics himself instead of some Broadway dude ten years before he was even born. 

"How much of you did you really have free to give, Pe--Rizz?" Gerard switched to Pete's character name at a twitch from Lynz and a jerk of his head towards the princess-like vanity table.

Pete glanced towards the Jan character, whose eyes had gone flat as they deviated from the script and he huffed, relaxing his resistance as he tugged the blonde wig off his head. With a glance in Jan's direction, he muttered, "Some people are so touchy."

**

As he did so often when anything went pear-shaped, Patrick took refuge in the music. He could feel himself slipping in and out of the narrative, his memories sliding like thick fluid back and forth between the vessels that held his life and new ones shaped by the narrative. Funneling through the points where they intersected, which proved to be more numerous than he first thought. _I've been to the beach with Joe Trohman and stepping on crabs was not romantic!_ In fact, when the clouds cleared from his head enough, what he remembered of that beach trip while on tour was Pete dumping sand in his swimming trunks and running off, laughing like a loon. Joe had gotten him good and drunk later that day and the two of them ate all the Hot Pockets in Pete and Joe's tour bus. There was no kissing, he was sure of it.

Except at that oceanside bar when the girls came around with Jello shots and Pete talked one of them into doing one of those tricks where she took the shot into her mouth and he dove in after it with all the tongue and then some, then Dirty spun an empty Corona bottle and it landed on Patrick and then Joe so Joe took the shot and Patrick went in after it and maybe came out with one of Joe's fillings, too, but the damn point was that that was _not kissing!_ No matter how many times Pete embellished the story.

But then the waves came in again and he remembered looking up into Joe's eyes and feeling the hot sand on his back and the pound of his heart and Danny Zu--Joe Trohman tasting like lemonade. Stupidly-romantic feelings he remembered never having felt in the first place and he stared up at the paper moon in the fake-looking sky and wondered, _Why me?_

Maybe it was his insecurities-- _I'm not a rock star_ , he said every chance he got. Even after sixteen years--fully half his life--standing on a stage before tens of thousands of screaming fans. He put on the outlandish costumes or the leather jackets Pete hand-lettered on his driveway, but underneath, he was still Sandy Olsen in her poodle skirt and cardigans. He thought he'd gotten over that--proven to himself that he could be comfortable in his own skin and his own closet.

Then Joe had to go and do that thing and it sent Patrick right back into memories that he couldn't separate from the Narrative. Dirty Little Secrets, tucked away in dark alleys and darker vans and shadowy, sweaty corners between tour buses and Keeping Up Appearances in the light, but while it was good enough for the stage and showed up at the after-party, it slipped out before morning and vanished in the face of a pretty smile and a size 2 waist.

He poured his heart out in song around a silly kiddie-pool while wearing a dress and missing his testicles (because hey, testosterone would have come in handy because he was starting to miss his lower registers). It wasn't like him to take Pete so seriously anymore. He hadn't had to get defensive around Pete in at least a decade. But Pete's insistence on trying to pierce his ears--and his strange, twitchy behavior when Patrick made the joke about no penetrating--made Patrick worry. Second-guess himself.

The narrative told him he should be pining over Joe, and part of him was. Coming face to face with his co-lead in the narrative brought back too many bad memories of his actual high school experience, and to have Joe's face attached to that kind of humiliation shook him. When he met Joe in that Borders bookstore at age sixteen, Joe had very quickly become his lifeline out of Hell's Own Hamster Wheel of Torture that was high school. If it weren't for Joe, he'd never have met so many people in the scene. Never met Pete and never found the courage to sing and--an avalanche of nevers piled up around him and scattered with the notepaper into the kiddie pool.

What made things worse was the panicked look in Joe's eyes. As if he couldn't control his mouth. Patrick's physical changes took him by surprise, and Gerard's conversation from earlier curled Patrick's hands into fists. The narrative played a dirty trick on Joe to get the reaction it needed, and now Patrick was moping in a backyard sleepover and not-really-suffering through the almost-country arrangement of the torch song.

Joe wasn't the only one bothered by Patrick's gender-surprise. Patrick himself notwithstanding, Pete had not handled things well, either. Sometimes, Patrick was sure Pete might be just a little jealous. Pete was most comfortable of all of them in a girl-state (while Andy had the most fun challenging the rest of them for assumptions about what made gender at all). And yes, Pete was supposed to play the scorned ex of the male lead, but Patrick could have sworn that Pete was more angry at him than at Joe. As if he had a right to be angry at either of them. _We're trapped in a fucking narrative, what are we supposed to do?_

The cake had been taken when Pete started singing about his squareness. Pete's singing voice was not his strongest musical talent, and in his lucid moments, Patrick worried that his deep and obviously masculine tone would tip off the Jan-NPC, but as long as Pete played the part with enough technical accuracy, the narrative accepted it. Although the song was an octave lower and the range was more limited than the song called for, the emotional range between mockery and venom was...impressive. 

What wasn't so impressive were the murmured asides and the slight pushes Pete and Gerard made around the lyrics. Pete mocked him for being uptight and threw his own words back in his face. All the while reminding Patrick of exactly who was the uptight one. _Just my luck to get some memories back and they're the ones I'd rather forget_.

How could he feel the same humiliation for playing the ingenue as he did when he was young and a precocious menace to an older, but still so-not-equipped-to-handle-him Pete? Stage jitters and bravado and Pete's strange fascination with him and his own reciprocal crush--the safe space carved out of secret places that Patrick _never once_ betrayed, yet became a permeable barrier through which Pete slipped back and forth with ease. 

Through the bathroom door, stomach churning very realistically, Patrick heard his best friend mocking him, reversing their positions at the prompting of the narrative, or was it his own spite? Patrick couldn't lie--it fucking hurt. Like 2009-hurt. Like ten years of healing and growing up and making room and redefining and-- _and suppressing_ , whispered a little traitor-voice in his head--all melted like sheets of foolscap and cheap ink in the kiddie pool in front of him.

The narrative pulled at him again, feeding into his feelings of heartbreak and rejection with an overlay of self-consciousness that bubbled up from the past like the La Brea tar pits, ready to spit up dinosaur skeletons of old hurts and fights long since forgiven and forgotten. Joe's true-blue eyes mixed up with Pete's hot whiskey ones in the memories--and Patrick really would not turn down a whiskey right now...or three our four--and he felt himself slipping a little more back into the narrative. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just let go--the narrative did give Sandy Olsen her happy ending, after all. All it took was a makeover.

He crumpled up the last of the paper and flung it into the pool, glaring up at the bedroom window. "Asshole!" He couldn't even say it loud enough for Pete to hear him. And they would be separated for the next while. Sandy Olsen was supposed to start hanging out with the cheerleaders--surprisingly unpopular in this era, but whatever. Pete would at least be with real people, while Patrick had to go it alone with the NPCs.

To his surprise, the window opened right then and Pete stuck his head out. Patrick opened his mouth to hiss another name at his best friend when he heard Andy's voice. "Hey! Hey Rizzo!"

Patrick wanted to run to Andy--to meet up with his bandmate and see if he'd learned anything new about the situation, if there were some way to squirm around some of the impending storyline--but then he heard Joe's voice and he decided right then and there that he'd rather stick his head into the kiddie pool and stay under until no more bubbles came up before he went out into the driveway. It made no sense, but he was hurting and he couldn't be sure if it was the narrative making him feel it, or this was all on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to say it, but the plot of Grease is pretty thin when you're not singing and dancing and doing ensemble numbers. If anything, it's as much "slice of life" (for a particular value of American teenager in one small segment of time). I'm heading into some choppy territory, I will admit. For those of you still reading, thank you for sticking it out! You can find me on tumblr at glitterandrocketfuel. Comments and Kudos feed your friendly fanfic authors so be generous!

**Author's Note:**

> I can't say these will go in order. I'm setting up this fic in chapters, but the parts themselves sort of overlap. I'll do my best to label them clearly, but feel free to hit me up on tumblr at @glitterandrocketfuel if there's something that seems off.


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